0 comments Gregg Doyel Has a List of Baseball Players Who He Knows Use PED's, Which He Will Totally Reveal Once It's Confirmed They Used PED's

You know guys, I know who is going to win the World Series this year. I can't obviously tell you now who will win the World Series this year, because that wouldn't be fair, but I will tell you after the baseball season is over who will win the World Series. Also, I know who the next President of the United States will be. Again, I can't tell you yet, but it's going to surprise you. Don't worry, I will tell you after the next President is elected if I was right or not. Much along the same lines, Gregg Doyel has a list of baseball players he knows use PED's. He can't name their names right now, but when the new Biogenesis names come out he will confirm those were the players he suspected of PED use. The reason he knows these players used PED's is because it's so obvious when an MLB player is using steroids. Just take a look at this list. Who didn't take a look at J.C. Romero or Neifi Perez and say, "Now THAT is a player who is using PED's." I remember looking at Freddy Galvis' career statistics and knowing he couldn't have hit nine career home runs without a little additional help from illegal performance enhancing drugs. Pablo Ozuna's fastball doesn't dip and dive like that without a little help from the old Cream and Clear.

The best part about this column is it gives readers a chance to speculate in the comments about which MLB players are using PED's. So Gregg Doyel's guessing game---I'm sorry, that's wrong---scientifically accurate judgment based on visual inspection on which current MLB players are using PED's is a game that YOU TOO can play at home. This is an interactive column.

I have a list. So do you, right?

Oh yeah, I do. I have a grocery list, a list of improvements needing to be made around the house, a list of people who I will call and cuss out once I'm old enough to pretend to be senile, and a shit-list which had new names added every week.

If you're a baseball fan and you're hearing that more names are about to be connected to Biogenesis, the cheatingest PED factory since BALCO, this is where you dig through your mental rolodex for the names of guys you're sure are cheating.

Nope. Don't have a list. I don't care. Players cheat and players I never dreamed would cheat (Hi, Clay Hensley!) are caught cheating. I enjoy the sport of baseball, and as much fun as it would be to speculate, I have long gotten over the PED name-and-then-blame game. MLB does testing, players will get caught, sportswriters will write columns about what a terrible person he is for cheating, and then I will cover a few columns on this site if the outrage is silly enough. Guess what? NBA and NFL players are using PED's too. I would give out my mental rolodex for the guys I'm sure are cheating, but I don't care enough to do that. If the NBA and the NFL doesn't care, why should I? MLB does care, which is why they have a PED policy. That's good enough for me at this point. I'm taking back my love of baseball by not worrying if there are certain players using PED's.

It wouldn't be fair to say that list out loud, certainly not with a megaphone as large as the one given to me here at CBSSports.com,

Well yes, that certainly would not be fair. It's much more fair to have a mental rolodex of these player's names and then write an entire column stating you know the players that have cheated because it's so obvious. Contribute to steroid hysteria by claiming you can name names, it's much more fair that way.

But I have a list.

Which Gregg will reveal immediately after the new Biogenesis names are announced. Once that happens, we will all see just how right Gregg was.

Baseball deserves the scrutiny, even the suspicion, that its players have stirred among us since the 1990s -- when the ordinary became stars, and stars became superstars, and superstars began doing things we had never seen before. Mark McGwire hitting 70 home runs? Barry Bonds hitting 73? Roger Clemens posting a career-best 1.87 ERA at age 43?

Yes, baseball does deserve the scrutiny. Though I am very focused on the current players who aren't putting up crazy numbers like this. All of those numbers happened over a decade ago. What crazy, insane, hard-to-believe numbers are MLB players putting up currently that sends Gregg Doyel's PED radar off so much?

Come on. To this day Bonds hasn't admitted he was cheating. Neither has Clemens. So they're on another list, a list that seems fair to say out loud, even on a megaphone as large as the one given to me here at CBSSports.com. Given their superhuman results and their constant links to PEDs, Bonds and Clemens -- and Sammy Sosa -- are on that list of players we suspect used PEDs.

(Gregg Doyel drags 10 year old PED story horse out and starts beating it)

At some point, these sportswriters have to move past the Clemens, Bonds, and Sosa names. It won't happen for a while because these are the go-to names whenever PED's in baseball are brought up. PED use by these players is the gift that keeps on giving when some enterprising sports columnists needs to crap out a column about baseball's sordid PED history.

The players we suspect are using them to this day? That's another list, and soon baseball will provide us with its own list, and we can compare notes.

And I bet Gregg's list will have a few names that are revealed by baseball. Not that Gregg would ever have a list and then pretend some of the names that are revealed were on his list too. That's not something he would do. He wouldn't have to, because his PED list is so obvious, just like Humberto Cota's PED use was obvious to anyone willing to pay attention.

It would be foolish, not bordering on naive but bordering on outright denial, to think baseball doesn't have a PED problem anymore.

I recognize this is a strawman argument, but where is the outrage and denial about PED use in other sports? Whey doesn't Julius Peppers' PED suspension not lead to angry columns from sportswriters about how the NFL has a PED problem? MLB has faced their PED problem and have very stringent drug testing. And yes, it would be naive to think baseball doesn't have a PED problem anymore. Just like it is foolish to think there will never be another murder in the United States. It's ridiculous to suggest baseball, or any sport for that matter, will be completely free of PED's. That doesn't mean there is a massive problem throughout baseball and it doesn't mean contributing to steroid hysteria is a logical reaction to this reality.

Here's a tip for you, so mark this down in ink: Baseball will always have a PED problem.

Here's a tip for you, so mark this down in ink: No shit, Sherlock. I don't think anyone has ever suggested baseball wouldn't have players trying to use PED's. I guess that makes it a problem if a person wants to be hysterical about it, but as long as humans are humans (and not dancer), then athletes are going to find a way to cheat. The fact there is a stringent drug policy in question that MLB is committed to which will lead to baseball players testing positive for PED's doesn't make it seem like a "problem" to me. It seems like the positive effect of drug testing.

The cheaters are always ahead of the testers, and while the PED police eventually catch lots of cheaters -- as they caught Victor Conte of BALCO and Anthony Bosch of Biogenesis -- there are more cheaters out there. Baseball can't catch them, because baseball doesn't know they exist. Not yet anyway.

So baseball can't catch cheaters they don't know about yet? No way.

Some things are so obvious that they don't need to be spoken. The fact baseball will have more players who try to cheat is an example of one of these statements. This doesn't mean baseball has a "problem," it means baseball players are human. As long as Sabermetricians are kept away from the sport, baseball will be played by humans and not computers. This means humans will try to cheat. So yes, the cheaters will always be slightly ahead of the PED police.

There's nothing new in this column. It's the same stuff as other PED hysteria columns.

The next Conte and Bosch think they're untouchable, because for now they are. The cheaters are always ahead of the testers, and they're like degenerate gamblers or thieves on a hot streak: They stupidly think they'll stay ahead forever.

So what baseball needs are pre-cogs. People who can predict a crime before it happens so that the PED police can round up these future cheaters and punish them for the crime they are going to commit.

The fact these cheaters "think" they will stay ahead forever is why I would argue baseball doesn't have a PED problem. MLB may not be able to stay ahead of the cheaters, but they will catch up, and the players who have cheated by using PED's will be found out most likely. It's not a problem, because lateness aside, MLB has a system that enables PED users to be caught.

Ryan Braun used to think he would never be caught, I promise you. So did Melky Cabrera. And Alex Rodriguez. And going back, Mark McGwire.

So the system works and MLB doesn't have a problem? Does it mean I have ant problem if I lay out ant bait systems in my house that attracts and kill ants or does it just mean that ants are going to find their way into my house and I have a way of killing them before they end up crawling on my food?

And I'm 100% sure before Melky Cabrera was caught using PED's he was on Gregg's list of players who DEFINITELY used PED's. I don't doubt that at all.

Nothing lasts forever, not even something as murky and vaporous as a drug the police don't yet know exists. The cream that Barry Bonds took? Drug testers didn't catch that because they didn't know what it was. Just as life finds a way to survive, evolving to adapt in the conditions it has confronted, cheaters are the same.

And yet, writers like Gregg Doyel trot out the same tired names like Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa, and other "name" players to show the huge problem MLB has, as well as show how it's so obvious which players are using PED's. This is all done in a way to prove it's easy to figure out which players are using PED's, but conveniently ignores the hundred other players suspended for PED use whose name wasn't on any person's mental list.

And people like us, we sit back and wait for the next wave of players to be caught, then outed publicly, so we can scorn them like we scorned A-Rod and Braun.

Perhaps it says something about me, but I don't wait for the next wave of players to be caught so I can scorn them. Is there some sort of self-satisfaction in scorning athletes publicly for using PED's that I just haven't chosen to experience to it's fullest morally superior extent? Athletes who use PED's deserve to get caught and suspended, but I'm very much over taking up my energy to scorn these players.

When the next list comes out, I'll scan it for three names I'm sure are cheating.

These are three names Gregg KNOWS are cheating. No matter who they are, I'm betting those three names will be on the new Biogenesis list. It's obvious these players are cheating and Gregg would out them, but that's not the classy thing to do. It's more classy to vaguely refer to players you know are cheating, since it's so obvious who is using PED's and who isn't, and then gloat once these names appear on the Biogenesis list. But don't worry, Gregg will reveal just how right he was once that new Biogenesis list is revealed, just like I'll tell you all who is going to be the next President of the United States (because it's so obvious) just after the next Presidential election occurs.

What do I look for? I'll tell you some day, when the list comes out and if any of my names are on there. I figure one of them will be at least. This stuff is easy, really. It's simple to look at certain guys and just think, just know, "He's not doing that legally."

Someone like Jesus Montero. Someone that is playing baseball and you look at and KNOW he can't be that slow and unable to hit the baseball well naturally. He must be secretly less talented and is using PED's to just bring himself up to the level of being a massive disappointment. What about Kevin Frandsen? He makes hitting .256 look a little too easy if you ask me. How did we not see his PED suspension coming? 

Especially given what we know about the nature of baseball, just like the nature of sprinting and cycling. Certain things have never been possible before, and while breakthroughs and advances do happen, there are some ceilings that get cracked that just don't seem plausible. Not legally plausible, anyway.

I'd love to know what ceilings have been cracked that don't seem plausible. It's been well-documented that hitters are striking out more and this is supposedly the age of pitchers (it's the pitchers who are using PED's!). No players are destroying home run records and no players are putting up the numbers seen during the Steroid Era. I'm just wondering what the advances and breakthroughs that are happening now are. Of course if Gregg Doyel told me now, it would ruin the surprise once the list comes out. 

So my list is ready. Is yours? Baseball's about to release its list, and while I have no idea who's nice anymore, I have a strong feeling about which guys have been naughty.

Of course you do. Just be sure to tell us how right your list was once the Biogenesis list is released. I'm dying to know how right you were and what factors you looked for that tipped you off to whether a player was using PED's or not. My guess is Gregg is going to reverse-engineer this whole thing and everything will look way more obvious once he gets the answers to the test questions. Of course we should have expected Player X! I mean, that one time he did that one thing! We should have known, just like it was obvious Antonio Bastardo was a PED user.